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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24602407">Behind the Lines</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sed/pseuds/Sed'>Sed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Across Enemy Lines [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>World of Warcraft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bigotry &amp; Prejudice, Children, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Family Feels, First Meetings, Fluff, Food Kink, Found Family, Licking, Love Letters, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Secrets, Story within a Story, Vignette</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:02:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,958</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24602407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sed/pseuds/Sed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of vignettes set during and after the events of the Across Enemy Lines series so far. Some of these were requests, and some were moments I wasn't able to include in the other fics for various reasons. There will be a note at the top of each story, explaining when it takes place in relation to other events.</p><p>I intend to post about one a week, and hopefully by the time the collection is complete, I'll be ready to start posting the next full story in the series.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Varok Saurfang/Anduin Wrynn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Across Enemy Lines [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1182515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. New Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This story takes place immediately after the final chapter of Consort.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Well, I suppose some good may yet come of all this,” Genn said. He gestured with one hand to the Horde who had come to fill an empty part of the grassy area just below the keep. Most had been furnished with tents, but a few made themselves comfortable on the open ground. “Gather enough of them, and eventually the whole Horde will consist of no more than Sylvanas and a handful of her Forsaken.”</p><p>Anduin chuckled at his joke. Although, come to think of it, it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea. Rather unrealistic, but then they weren’t working with much else these days. “What did you think of the speech?” he asked.</p><p>Genn hesitated, and Anduin sighed. “You weren’t listening,” he said. “Is that what all the whispering was about? Were you and Varok back there plotting to overthrow me?”</p><p>“Of course not,” Genn insisted, frowning. “If we were going to do that we’d have done it when you were bedridden. Much easier to stage a coup when you’re overthrowing an invalid.” He nodded at Anduin’s closed hand and asked, “What have you got there?”</p><p>“Oh.” Anduin turned his palm up and showed Genn the ring he was holding. It was a plain silver band, much wider than a man’s ring, and scuffed from use. Rather, it appeared so from the outside. Anduin knew better. “A gift for a friend,” he said. He declined to mention <em>whose</em> friend.</p><p>Genn harrumphed and turned back to the scene of the milling Horde. “You’re not giving that brute a <em>ring</em> now, are you?” he asked. It lacked the usual bite, which Anduin had not failed to notice. It pleased him that Genn and Varok seemed to have made peace with one another at last.</p><p>He smiled. “I was wondering when you would ask that.”</p><p>“It’s a bit obvious, isn’t it?”</p><p>“The ring isn’t for Varok, Genn.” Although, it likely would have fit his enormous fingers. Anduin was suddenly struck by a rather vivid memory of the night before, and he felt his cheeks begin to burn. He cleared his throat and added, “In fact, I believe I see the recipient now.” He pointed at the Horde camp, and a blue troll dressed in a shaman’s garb, walking among the tents. He was refilling water buckets.</p><p>“You’re not going down there,” Genn said. He unfolded his arms from around his chest. It seemed as though he had every intention of blocking Anduin’s path if he tried.</p><p>“They are already in the city, Genn. I don’t think they’re intending to throw their lives away just to take me prisoner. Especially with Varok only a short distance away.” His lover—his <em>mate</em>, his own mind helpfully and excitedly supplied, and wasn’t that a wonderful feeling—was with the night elves who had recently come from Darkshore. Miren Songleaf was beside him, and they were speaking with what appeared to be a young kaldorei girl with a pair of strange daggers strapped to her hips. From a distance it rather looked like parents listening to a child’s accounting of their adventures.</p><p>“Am I to assume that means you doubt they would find me threatening?”</p><p>“You’re to assume that means I expect you to stay here. Oh,” Anduin waved a hand, “don’t give me that look. You know as well as I do that they <em>do</em> find you threatening, and that is precisely why you aren’t coming with me. And we both know you’re rather pleased by that.”</p><p>Genn made an unhappy face, but there was the hint of a smile in his eyes regardless.</p><p>At least, Anduin reflected as he clapped the older king on the shoulder, he was in a pleasant mood today.</p><p> </p><p><br/>
The troll was already on the far end of the encampment when Anduin located him. He passed the footsoldiers assigned to keep watch over their unconventional guests, waving them off as he did so. They, like Genn, appeared to have misgivings about the king taking a stroll amongst a group of Horde. Anduin had no such concerns. These men and women had risked their lives to free Saurfang from imprisonment and prevent his death; for Anduin’s part he considered them heroes. No differences could erase that impression from his mind.</p><p>“You’re Zekhan?” Anduin asked, using the question to announce his approach. He saw several heads lift, and some eyes widened, no doubt surprised to see the Alliance king in their midst absent an escort.</p><p>The young troll turned, and for a moment he appeared panicked, as though he wasn’t sure what to do or say. He settled for a nod and a half-bow, more of a quick duck, really. In what Anduin took to be his best Common, he said, “Yes, Your Majesty. Apologies.”</p><p>“Apologies for what?” Anduin replied in Orcish.</p><p>Zekhan seemed relieved to have switched a more familiar tongue. He smiled around his tusks. “For not knowin’ the proper way to greet a king. But I suppose it be about the same as greeting the warchief, now that I think about it.”</p><p>“A smile and a handshake will also do,” Anduin replied, adding, “for me,” onto the end. He could only imagine how his father might have reacted to being so informally greeted by what he would have considered his enemy, regardless of the strange circumstances. Or Genn, for that matter. He pulled the glove from his right hand and extended it toward the troll. “Anduin,” he said. An offer of good will.</p><p>Zekhan’s eyes widened a fraction, and then his three-fingered hand shot out and grasped Anduin’s, and he shook it excitedly. “This be a whole day of firsts,” he laughed.</p><p>“For me as well, Zekhan.”</p><p>When he finally let go, Zekhan was still smiling. He seemed so genuinely pleased by the exchange that Anduin couldn’t help but catch some of his enthusiasm. “But what can I do for you, uh, Anduin?” he added quickly. “I can’t imagine what use the high king of the whole Alliance might have for one troll, already dependin’ on his hospitality.”</p><p>“I wanted to thank you,” Anduin said simply.</p><p>“Thank me?”</p><p>“I count High Chieftain Bloodhoof among my good friends, and Varok is—Lord Saurfang—that is—” Anduin abruptly and unexpectedly found himself stumbling over his own words. It was not at all the sort of behavior one would expect of a king. He felt his skin grow hot under Zekhan’s curious gaze, and he snapped his mouth shut to stop the flow of words. Gathering some of the dignity he had so unceremoniously spilled everywhere, he cleared his throat and said, “Your efforts to assist those who would put an end to this war, and stop Sylvanas’ tyranny, are appreciated. And I am personally thankful for the help you have given to those I consider my friends.”</p><p>It had never occurred to him that a troll, with such cumbersome tusks, might be able to grin. But Zekhan did, and Anduin saw his eyes travel to the metal clasp that had been fitted to his own golden locks. “Saurfang… he’s a little more than a <em>friend</em>, though, yeah?”</p><p>Anduin could have been offended by the question, and some part of him, a part that sounded remarkably like Genn, thought he should be—if only to salvage a bit of his pride. But there was no real force behind it, and Anduin let his shoulders slump as he sighed, chagrined and unable to hide it. “He is,” he said. It was difficult not to smile warmly, and a bit shyly, as he did so.</p><p>“You should know, he could think of nothing else but warnin’ you,” Zekhan said. Anduin looked up to meet the troll’s eyes. He made no effort to hide his surprise. “Wouldn’t even escape at first, ‘til I told him Sylvanas had plans to betray you anyway. He was ready to die.” Zekhan huffed a sigh—one that spoke of experience with the same sort of altruistic, self-sacrificing disposition Anduin himself had endured from the orc. “Been ready to die for a while, I think. But since returnin’ here, since you been up and about, it’s like a new fire’s come alive in his heart. If you don’t mind me sayin’ so, Anduin…” He forced the name, as though he still struggled to convince himself he could say it. “You be a good match.”</p><p>Anduin didn’t mind it at all. In fact, his heart felt lifted by the words, warmed in a way he desperately needed. It wasn’t that the love and warmth of those closest to him meant <em>less</em>, but there was always a voice, always a vague fear in the back of his mind, warning him that it was only an illusion. Whether for good or ill, they were only saying what needed to be said in order to prop him up, keep him going. It was becoming easier each day to convince himself that wasn’t so, but at times he still found his confidence wavering. His heart still pained him, and not in any way he knew how to fix. He couldn’t even admit his doubts to Saurfang and Genn, for fear that it would hurt them, and they would take to worrying over him again.</p><p>But something about Zekhan’s unsolicited appraisal, his quick acceptance of Anduin… It rang true. Perhaps his honesty and charm were what had drawn Saurfang to him as well. He seemed the sort of man who might earn his place among the orc’s friends by sheer will alone. Anduin liked that. Saurfang needed a good kick now and then.</p><p>They all did, really.</p><p>“It means a great deal to hear you say that,” he said. “And now I’d like to do something for you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver band. Even in the light it appeared as dull and featureless as it had in the shade of the castle garden. Anduin held it between his thumb and forefinger, turning it for Zekhan to inspect. “You may find it fits better on one of your tusks than it does on a finger. I leave it up to you how you wish to wear it, if you choose to do so at all.”</p><p>Zekhan reached for the ring and held it up to his eye, inspecting the unremarkable, scuffed silver. “Thank you, but…”</p><p>Anduin smiled. He did enjoy a good surprise now and then. “It is rather unassuming, but that’s the point. If you look inside you will see why.”</p><p>Zekhan turned the band and peered into the interior, where he found the carefully hidden lion’s head stamped into the metal. He smiled. “Clever!” he exclaimed.</p><p>Anduin had commissioned two such bands. One for Baine, and one for Saurfang’s troll friend. A gesture of thanks. “I understand you will be leaving with Baine,” he said. “What he intends to do won’t be easy, or safe. Should you ever find yourself in need of help, or safe passage through Alliance territory, you need only show that ring to an officer. They will know it for what it is, and understand what it means.”</p><p>“This is…” Zekhan grinned, stretching his lips around his tusks. “This is more kindness than I’ve earned, Your Majesty.”</p><p>“Anduin. And I sincerely disagree, Zekhan.”</p><p>“Well, of course, if you say… But the others—”</p><p>“I trust in you and Baine to see them safely through what is to come. If you vouch for any of them, they will be protected under the same conditions,” Anduin explained. “I only regret that I cannot do more.”</p><p>Zekhan inclined his head, and rapped a fist against his chest. “We got a chance to do more than we could have without your help. The Horde and the Alliance never been friends, but that don’t mean we can’t be.” He smiled brightly. “Thank you.”</p><p> </p><p><br/>
Saurfang caught up to him as he was returning to the keep. He had left the elves, the displaced Horde, and his other business behind. As they walked side by side, Anduin leaned into him, bumping the orc’s great shoulder with his own.</p><p>“I saw you speaking with Zekhan,” Saurfang said. His deep timbre carried in the stone corridor of the keep’s entryway.</p><p>“Did you,” Anduin answered. He felt a warm hand brush the back of his fingers, still bare from the handshake he had offered Zekhan.</p><p>“What did you discuss?”</p><p>There was naked curiosity in that question; a rare thing for a man like Saurfang, who was normally far more guarded. Anduin smirked. He slipped his small fingers between Saurfang’s and brought his hand up to kiss his scarred and callused knuckles. “My favorite subject,” he said. “You.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Subscribe to this fic for updates on new short stories as they're added! Also feel free to check out the links in my <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sed/profile">profile</a>, which will take you to my new blog. There you can find a list of my current WIPs, as well as info for prompt requests.</p><p>Thank you to all the returning readers! Sorry it's taken so long to get back to this series!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Red Wine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This story is set shortly after Armor.</p><p>Requested by someone who wanted to see more of the relationship between Anduin and Saurfang as it developed early on.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anduin became something of a fixture in Saurfang’s life in the days following his release from the Stockade. Since that first evening spent together, in fact. He sometimes found himself struck by the urge to visit the orc in the middle of the night, and so Saurfang had never locked his door. Indeed, he seemed disdainful of doors in general, and returned the favor by simply marching into Anduin’s rooms whenever he felt he had a need. Or a desire.</p><p>Despite Genn’s fury at Saurfang’s presence, to say nothing of his <em>much</em> stronger feelings regarding their far more intimate association, it did not stop the pair from meeting frequently. Anduin was young and full of energy, and Saurfang, though much older, didn’t seem to have suffered any setbacks to his own virility for it. A fact Anduin took great advantage of as often as possible. It was the first carefree joy he had experienced in a long time, at least since his father had died on the Broken Shore. It seemed Anduin’s entire world had changed that day, but he could forget that with Saurfang draped over him, or pinning him down to the floor. He could simply take pleasure in the moment.</p><p>And it was the floor, more often than not; after their first tryst the night Saurfang had come to the keep, the bed in the guest chambers had been rendered more or less useless. Anduin simply wasn’t willing to risk losing his own to the same fate, at least not until he was able to work up the courage to charge a blacksmith with crafting some sort of reinforcements for the frame. In the meantime, Saurfang had gathered all the blankets and furs and other padded material he could find and made his own sleeping arrangements on the stone floor of his room, and so that was where they… met. Anduin had wondered if it wasn’t a bit distasteful at first, but he had quickly come to find he didn’t really care. With Saurfang in and around him, filling every sense, grunting and panting in his ear, what surface he was kneeling, lying, or standing on hardly seemed to matter. In fact, there was something rather exciting about abandoning all those courtly manners that had been drilled into his head since birth, and simply letting himself get drawn down to the floor to be fucked. The thought alone had him aching and anxious for the day to end. Genn was asking after him for the evening meal, but Anduin begged off, claiming a headache. He knew Genn would see it for the lie it was, but he didn’t much care. His need had become something of a craving, and would not be ignored.</p><p>The night before, Saurfang had pinned Anduin to the wall facing an open window. He had taken him there and challenged the king not to shout, or make any noise that others might hear. It was torture. Exquisite, thrilling torture. He had also done something rather unexpected, and held Anduin afterward. Such tender moments were not unheard of, but they were certainly rare. And it was difficult to deny that Anduin’s distraction this evening was not at least partly because of how good it had felt to simply lie in a lover’s arms for a time.</p><p>He wanted to thank Saurfang for being so gentle, and he had taken most of the morning to devise the means by which he might do so.</p><p>Rather than immediately ascending the keep to his chambers, as he had done countless times in the past following a day of meetings, discussing strategies and recounting war losses, Anduin immediately headed to the kitchen. There he passed all the busy cooks and bakers, lightly jogging down the stone staircase that led to a wine cellar he thought might have been a part of the original castle. Within lay rows upon rows of dusty bottles, some no doubt past the point that they would be worth the effort to uncork. He searched for one he recalled from his childhood, when he had first been permitted to take wine with his meals.</p><p>When he found the bottle he tucked it into the crook of his arm and left the way he had come, finally taking the familiar route to his rooms. He passed Genn in the corridor, and the older king scowled and shook his head.</p><p>Varok Saurfang did not strike Anduin as a particularly sentimental man—indeed, their entire relationship, if it could indeed be called that, had been little more than an endless clash of urgency and lust. But there were shades of something more, and Anduin could not deny his need to expose them. To see if what he secretly hoped was hidden there might be tempted to the surface. He wasn’t entirely certain what he might do with such a thing if he found it, but that was a matter for later. The him of days to come could worry about what a deeper connection with the high overlord might mean for his life.</p><p>He passed the turn that would take him to the staircase leading to the upper keep, and instead made a beeline for Saurfang’s door. Genn had fought hard to exclude the orc from the day’s proceedings, and although Anduin had admonished him for it, he had nevertheless still allowed it in the end. Some things, Anduin thought, were better left out of the orc’s hands. Ordering the deaths of perhaps hundreds of loyal Horde soldiers seemed one of them. Saurfang had never expressed an interest in keeping his hands clean of his people’s blood, but Anduin had already decided he would do his best to facilitate it regardless.</p><p>Using the knuckles of the hand that held the bottle, Anduin rapped on the old wooden door. He waited, and willed his body to act as though it wasn’t just as interested in what was to come as his heart.</p><p>The door swung open, and Saurfang, naked but for a pair of short breeches covering his lower half, stood before him.</p><p>“Majesty,” he greeted. He looked past Anduin to the window in the corridor; the sun had been below the horizon for some time, and the sky outside was a rich blue, drawing closer to black by the minute. He grunted. “Come in.”</p><p>“Have you eaten already?” Anduin asked, setting the wine on the table.</p><p>Saurfang shook his head. His silver plaits swung against his bare chest, framing the broad muscles that tensed and pulled beneath his green skin with every motion. Anduin couldn’t help but lick his lips.</p><p>When he looked up, Saurfang was smirking. “What?”</p><p>“It seems you are the one hungry for something.” His hand moved to the lacing of his pants, and he started to pull on the neatly tied knot.</p><p>“Wait—” Anduin held out his hands, and Saurfang froze. “I am, but… tonight I think I would like something a bit different. If you’re amenable.”</p><p>Saurfang eyed him carefully for a moment, and then he nodded. “Tell me,” he said.</p><p>“First, I’ll have someone bring us something to eat. Then I will show you.” Anduin was pleased to note that there was no suspicion in the high overlord’s eyes. Only curiosity, and, even more encouraging, desire.</p><p> </p><p><br/>They had finished their meal—venison, eaten from a tray as they lay stretched out beside the hearth—and Anduin decided it was time to nudge things along. His heart beat wildly in his chest as he moved to his knees and reached for the bottle of wine. Saurfang held out his hand to take the bottle, but once more Anduin stopped him. “Let me,” he said.</p><p>While Saurfang watched, obvious in his interest, Anduin stripped down to his skin before uncorking the bottle. But rather than reaching for a glass, he shuffled across the floor until he could pin Saurfang back to the warm stones beside the fire, straddling his hips. He felt the erection straining beneath him, and fought the urge to press back onto it. With one hand he pinned Saurfang at the shoulder, symbolically holding him down, and with the other he slowly tipped the bottle until the wine dribbled out onto the orc’s bare chest.</p><p>Saurfang hissed when the cool liquid hit his skin, and made to rise. Anduin stopped him with a look. “Wait,” he commanded. To his surprise, Saurfang obeyed.</p><p>Anduin leaned down and drew his tongue along the dip in the center of Saurfang’s chest, right over his heart, lapping up the wine one slow lick at a time. He felt an unrepressed shudder beneath him, and knew that he had hit his mark. More wine was spilled, and Anduin followed its path along the high overlord’s twitching flank.</p><p>“<em>Anduin</em>,” Saurfang breathed, breaking his usual habit of referring to the young king only by title, despite the invitation to use his name. When they were alone, when nothing lay between them but sweat and the hot, heavy air, he would sometimes rumble his name almost reverently. But this was… different. This was <em>need</em>. Saurfang’s hips jerked and he reached for Anduin to push him down against his cock, but Anduin put a stop to it once more.</p><p>“Let me,” was all he said. It was all he needed.</p><p>Saurfang huffed and grunted, straining where he lay as Anduin’s tongue explored every inch of skin that had been graced by the sweet wine. He took the bottle and drew from it himself at one point, only to pass it back with shaking hands.</p><p>In time, Anduin found he had run out of space, and so he moved down until he could take the lacing of Saurfang’s pants in his fingers and gingerly pluck them open. He was well accustomed to the sight of the high overlord’s thick shaft as it rose free from the confines of his clothing, twitching above the silver hair that traveled up the length of his abdomen, until it disappeared somewhere above his belly. He relished the sight of it, the taste, the way it throbbed in his hand and beneath his tongue. Careful not to pour too high, lest the evening end rather abruptly, Anduin let some of the wine trickle from the mouth of the bottle and onto the arched underside of Saurfang’s cock. He heard another hiss, but there was no attempt to stop him this time. It tasted even sweeter when he pressed his lips and tongue to the hot, silken skin, licking every drop that he could before pouring more.</p><p>His tongue traveled down, lapping at the base of Saurfang’s cock, making him groan, and then finding where the liquid had coated the soft skin of his balls. He worked them slowly, long past the point that there was anything left of the wine to lick up, all the while serenaded by the sounds that his efforts drew from deep within Saurfang’s chest. Anduin was almost tempted to venture lower, but he pulled back before he could. He did not think Saurfang would welcome such an unexpected touch. Some other time, perhaps.</p><p>“Anduin,” he heard again, this time barely a whisper. Saurfang was searching for him with his hands, but his eyes were screwed shut, and he was reaching blindly. Anduin answered with his mouth, closing it around the head of Saurfang’s flushed cock. He angled himself to take it deeper, right up to where it hit the back of his throat. He couldn’t manage more, not yet. His tongue worked tirelessly as he bobbed his head, and he set the bottle aside to gently knead the soft flesh between Saurfang’s legs with one hand while he stroked his hot shaft with the other.</p><p>He felt the change when Saurfang was close to coming, and heard the hitch in his breath as it happened. Anduin made no move to pull away as he had in the past, but instead hollowed his cheeks and sucked harder, groaning when he felt the first pulse of hot fluid hit his tongue and begin to fill his mouth. Saurfang was grunting, panting, his fingers clawing at the stones beneath him as he came. Anduin tried to swallow, but it was more than he could manage. It escaped his lips and dripped back down the length of Saurfang’s shaft, onto Anduin’s fingers as they continued to pump him rhythmically through his climax.</p><p>At last the stimulation became too much to bear, even for the high overlord, and Saurfang pushed at his shoulder with a shaky hand. “No more,” he gasped. His arm fell to the floor, limp and useless. He was entirely spent, and, thanks to the wine, slick all over.</p><p>Anduin moved up to lie beside him. He was harder than truesteel himself, but it could wait. Bringing Saurfang pleasure had been his only real desire, and he had seen to it well beyond even his expectations. He draped an arm across the orc’s broad chest, smoothing his palm across skin still glistening with beads of dark wine. His touch was rewarded with a contented sigh. Saurfang’s arms encircled him, and Anduin felt his heartbeat quicken. He settled his head on Saurfang’s shoulder. He smiled when he felt the touch of large fingers on his hair, and sighed happily when they began to slowly stroke the spot behind his ear.</p><p>Yes, there were considerable shades of something else present in these moments. Anduin could see them now, their shape and, with any luck, their direction. He hoped Saurfang might see them too, but he was patient enough to wait. To let the high overlord meet him somewhere in the middle, whenever he was ready.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Fun fact, this was the first WoW story I wrote that contained the word <i>fuck</i>. Not the first I ever shared, but the first where I managed to make myself write it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Burdens</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This story is set during the weeks following the events of Consort.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“This is…”</p>
<p>“Make your opinions known, Genn, I’ll learn them sooner or later.”</p>
<p>Genn held up the reforged helm, resplendent in gleaming gold and silver as it had once been. His eyes traveled down to the steel gorget. And its <em>spikes</em>. He made a sound not quite a hum and yet not entirely a growl.</p>
<p>Anduin snorted a small laugh. “Illuminating. I suppose you feel similarly about the pauldrons.”</p>
<p>Genn tapped the tip of his finger against the smaller, thinner spikes that dotted the gold banding on the edges of the overlapping plates. “Better defense, I suppose.”</p>
<p>“I’m pleased you could find something you like about it.” Anduin traced the delicate scrollwork that had been etched into the planes of the gorget spikes. The smiths had truly outdone themselves. “And Varok?”</p>
<p>“I’ve not seen him wear his own yet. It is still in his chambers, as far as I know.”</p>
<p>That gave Anduin pause; Saurfang hadn’t used the set of rooms that had been assigned to him for some time now. He frowned. “Doesn’t he like it?”</p>
<p>Genn only shrugged. “I couldn’t say. He is your…” The word seemed to catch in his throat, and he struggled with it.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to trouble yourself, Genn.”</p>
<p>“I am trying, you know. That should count for something.”</p>
<p>Anduin gave him a pat on the shoulder before replacing the armor on its stand. Most of it had been remade entirely, done to his own specifications, and his designs. It had been Genn’s suggestion that the helm, gloves, and breastplate in particular be melted down. Anduin hadn’t bothered to argue. No one had permitted him to see the gore-stained steel once it was whisked away to the armory, but he knew. He knew what it must have looked like. By comparison, the thought of seeing the hole punched in the breast by Shalamayne’s blade bothered him far less than the evidence of his own crimes.</p>
<p>“High Priestess Laurena has been asking after you again,” Genn said too casually to be mere conversation. “Tonight is the last of the services to the fallen from Durotar—”</p>
<p>“I have said my prayers to the Light,” Anduin muttered, silencing Genn. There was no need for him to interrupt the services with his presence. He couldn’t imagine anyone there would wish to see the face of the man who had murdered a number of them, even if no one could determine who among the dead had fallen to his blade. Or his rage.</p>
<p>“And for that I am grateful. Mia and I had feared that you might never again seek the Light’s blessing on your own. But Anduin…” He sighed. “You are a priest, and you are a king.”</p>
<p>“And those two need not ever intersect.”</p>
<p>“What a foolish, selfish thing to say.” Genn suddenly sounded very angry. Angrier, perhaps, than Anduin had heard him in a very long time. Anduin kept his eyes on the suit of armor, content to pretend as though some detail had captured his interest. “It isn’t like you, Anduin, to put your own needs before others. You forsake—”</p>
<p>“I have not forsaken the Light!” Anduin snapped, half-turning to glare at no one.</p>
<p>Genn was very quiet. “I had no intention of suggesting you had. Nor that you ever would.”</p>
<p>A comforting hand fell upon his shoulder, and Anduin looked down, hanging his head in shame. The heat of it beneath his skin usurped the rage that had blossomed in his chest like an open wound. “Genn, I…”</p>
<p>“It is your people, Anduin. They have come to rely on you. On your guidance, and your strength.”</p>
<p>“I have no strength for this, Genn.” Anduin said quietly.</p>
<p>He had reached out to the Light at times, praying for those whose lives he had taken, those whose lives had been lost marching on orders he had issued in a state of near-madness. He had pleaded for its forgiveness, yet never received any absolution that he could sense. And yet in all practical matters, the Light had not actually abandoned him. He could still seek its soothing warmth, and entreat its blessing. He could do so for others, as well as himself. But where it had once filled him easily, now it seemed harder to reach, harder to feel—distant, as though it held itself away from him. He felt as though a part of himself had been lost in the shadow of the Old God’s touch, and the Light must sense that. It knew his devotion, his faith, but also knew that he had been changed. Irrevocably tainted by shadow.</p>
<p>“That isn’t true,” Genn said, a fierceness in his voice that Anduin desperately wanted to believe. “You are the strongest person I know.”</p>
<p>“Your closest friend is an orc, I somehow doubt that.”</p>
<p>“He is not—my boy, you won’t distract me with your clever barbs.” Genn grasped his shoulders and turned him around, bringing them face to face, as though Anduin were only a child in need of a good talking-to instead of a king. “Your strength is not in the swing of an axe or a sword. Your strength is here.” His fingertips touched Anduin’s chest. Mere inches from where Shalamayne had pierced it.</p>
<p>Anduin met Genn’s eyes, unflinching. “Genn, I know that you believe you understand this. I know you only want to help.”</p>
<p>“Then <em>listen</em> to me, Anduin.”</p>
<p>With a sigh, Anduin stepped away from the heavy weight of the fingers on his chest. They felt like pins in an insect’s wings, holding him down. He knew Genn would not hear him, even if he tried. There were times he could talk to Saurfang, but he knew the same misunderstandings plagued his mate as those preventing Genn from seeing the truth. That Anduin was not merely pitying himself, or doubting his worthiness. That he had not simply given up. It was acceptance.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><br/>He returned to his chambers feeling weary and drained, dragging his feet upon the stone tiles as he trudged into the room. Saurfang was seated in a wide armchair by the window, deep in a book. It was a welcome sight. “Would dinner interrupt your research?” Anduin asked. He stepped on the heel of his left boot and slid his foot out of the leather, discarding it with a kick.</p>
<p>Saurfang frowned as he watched the boot go sailing into a corner. “My research is ongoing,” he muttered. The deep, rich sound of his voice soothed something in Anduin that he hadn’t known needed such comfort. Without thinking, he crossed the room and crawled into Saurfang’s lap, draping himself over his broad chest. Saurfang merely held his arms out helplessly, frowning as Anduin made himself comfortable. “I see,” he said.</p>
<p>“Could I talk to you?” Anduin asked.</p>
<p>“You never have to ask me that.” A warm hand came down on his shoulder, and the book clapped shut.</p>
<p>Anduin nuzzled his chest. The feeling of the tunic against his skin, the familiar scent of the man he loved, brought him a measure of peace he hadn’t felt all day. He sighed. “Genn wishes for me to attend the services for the fallen.”</p>
<p><em>Services</em> painted a somewhat inaccurate picture, of course. There were no bodies to bury. The army had seen to that on Mathias Shaw’s orders. Their retreat from Durotar hadn’t left time for anything but the hasty burning of their own dead. The services in the Cathedral of Light were merely a formality. A balm for the wounded hearts of those left behind. Those who had survived.</p>
<p>“The old wolf cares for you. He worries about you,” Saurfang said.</p>
<p>“He doesn’t understand.”</p>
<p>“No,” Saurfang agreed, “he does not.”</p>
<p>Anduin was silent for a long moment, merely thinking. Then he asked, “Do you believe I should go?”</p>
<p>“I think, if you are asking me, that means you already know the answer.”</p>
<p>Well, that wasn’t quite the answer he had been expecting. Nor the one he was hoping to hear, if he was being honest. Humming thoughtfully, he settled against Saurfang. He no longer wished to dwell on his latest failing as king. It was much easier to be someone else—some<em>thing</em> else—even if only for a moment. Nothing more than a man sharing a quiet moment with his mate.</p>
<p>But that wasn’t his reality, and Genn was right, he could not separate the parts of himself into neatly ordered spaces, regardless of how much he might wish to.</p>
<p>He sighed. “I was having a very pleasant day, I will have you know.”</p>
<p>Saurfang wrapped him tightly, holding him close. He huffed a breath that warmed the top of Anduin’s head, and his heart. “I am certain Greymane regrets causing you any distress, Your Majesty,” he muttered. There was a ghost of a smile in his reassurance, and he made no effort to hide it.</p>
<p>“Mm, are you?” Anduin sat up. He picked up the book—<em>Kel’thuzad and the Forming of the Scourge—</em>and thumbed through its worn pages. “I will leave you to your reading, then, and see to procuring our dinner,” he said, handing it over. Whatever it was that had so captured Saurfang’s attention, he had been hard at work for weeks, nose buried in a book whenever he wasn’t doing something else.</p>
<p>Anduin stood and stretched. He felt the hands that had held him so close before as they came to rest low on his hips. “You know,” Anduin said, “I believe it’s possible that we all returned from Kalimdor with new wounds. Some more obvious than others.” He turned around in the circle of Saurfang’s hold, and looked deeply into his eyes. It was hard to imagine a time in his life when he had not adored the orc sitting before him. “And perhaps favoring those injuries, and the pains they have caused, has done us more harm than good.”</p>
<p>He reached out, placing a hand on the side of Saurfang’s face, lightly stroking the faint trace of a scar. “A suit of armor for you, and for me…”</p>
<p>“A visit you have put off for far too long.”</p>
<p>Anduin nodded. “When you have finished your work here, will you bring it to our chambers? Your armor,” he added. “Genn says it’s quite remarkable.”</p>
<p>Saurfang grimaced, looking away as though ashamed. He made no attempt to move Anduin’s hand. “Will it truly make you so happy, seeing me in blue?”</p>
<p>“It will make me happy to see you as you should be,” Anduin said. “A warrior. A proud, honorable man. The color you wear means little to me. Blue or red, it has never changed <em>you</em>. I hope you would never believe that it could.” He tilted his head, offering a small smile. “The man who walked into certain death, prepared to give up everything so that he might save others. How could anything so simple as a color change him?”</p>
<p>“A human king changed him.”</p>
<p>Anduin chuckled quietly. “There is nothing simple about that human king,” he said. “And you tread upon dangerous ground suggesting otherwise.”</p>
<p>Rather than letting go, Saurfang only grasped his hand and pulled him in, bringing Anduin back into his lap. The book fell to the floor, forgotten. He pressed his forehead to Anduin’s, and said, “I would never suggest such a thing. But I would tread any ground for my king. I would walk through fire for him. I hope he understands that.”</p>
<p>The emotion that filled him at that was indescribable, and Anduin relished it. He nodded, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden rush of love and gratitude he felt. “He does.” Light, he had been granted so much. So many blessings. “And I think,” he sighed, resigning himself to it, “if you can do that for me, then I can brave the consequence of what it is I’ve done. I can face their grief, because I have this. Even if I don’t deserve it.”</p>
<p>“I will not waste my breath arguing with you this time.” Saurfang released Anduin, letting him step down from his lap. “Go,” he said.</p>
<p>“Go where?” Anduin asked. He wiped an unshed tear from the corner of his eye. “Dinner—”</p>
<p>“Will wait. Go where you are needed now,” Saurfang said gently. “Be a king worth the fire.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Misgivings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This story takes place about a month before Black Sand.</p>
<p>(AN: I really love inflicting small children on Saurfang, and the only other time I've written it was in The Arrangement. So I figured he was due for an attack of extremely frank tiny people in AEL.)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I know it's been a while, I took a break from these vignettes to work on Lionfang Week and some other projects. Sorry for the delay!</p>
<p>At this point I have to decide if I'm going to end these with the next chapter. Please feel free to make suggestions about anything I've failed to cover. Whether or not anything comes up will be the deciding factor in whether next week is the end of this set of stories or if there will be 3 more.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anduin had departed for Kul Tiras in the morning, leaving Saurfang to his own devices in the keep for the first time in what he estimated to be two whole weeks. The old wolf had gone with him, and Saurfang counted himself lucky for that. Greymane’s incessant paranoia had begun to grate on his nerves, more so than usual for all that the man seemed to have nothing but time on his hands. Saurfang might have thought that a high-ranking commander of the Alliance forces, even one who had previously been a king himself, might have duties to perform besides shadowing his own king around like a forlorn pup. But it seemed the mangy cur had designated himself as both advisor and bodyguard to Anduin. Something for which Saurfang was simultaneously grateful and wearied.</p>
<p>Whatever it was that had begun to grow between himself and the young king in the weeks since his release from the Stockade, Saurfang wished to see it nurtured. He was fond of Anduin, beyond just the taste and touch of him, or his seemingly endless need for physical intimacy. He found Anduin fascinating in ways he had never imagined, both intellectually and in his incredible character. They debated, conversing for hours over the most obscure subjects, and on more than one occasion Saurfang had been forced to concede that he had been outmaneuvered by a human with only a third of his own life experience. It was humbling, and in a way it was thrilling, and it made him long for Anduin’s time even in those hours when they could not be together.</p>
<p>Now, of course, Anduin would be gone for several days, and Saurfang was alone. </p>
<p>The guards in the keep had grown accustomed to his presence during his stay, which he had come to think of as a far more permanent arrangement than initially presumed. Occasionally his thoughts did stray to one day returning to the Horde, but the more time he spent with Anduin, and the more comfortable he grew in Stormwind, the more he wondered where his place was anymore. Certainly there would be no going back while Sylvanas was warchief. And if the Alliance succeeded in defeating her? Returning home, returning to Orgrimmar, would mean leaving Anduin behind.</p>
<p>There had been a time when the prospect of losing that small spark of joy might not have been so daunting. Now it was almost unthinkable. He wasn’t certain when or how that had happened. But he had a feeling it was Anduin’s doing.</p>
<p>In Anduin’s absence, Saurfang found himself listless. It put him in mind of his days languishing in the human camps. No one had any expectations of him in Stormwind Keep, of course. In truth, he suspected that they rather preferred him to remain where he was, out of the way and quiet in his chambers. But in its own way, this listlessness was maddening.</p>
<p>He sat at the window on the afternoon following Anduin’s departure, watching the city that sprawled before the great courtyard of the keep. He had never enjoyed such a view of Stormwind before Anduin appeared in his cell and swept him up into the chaos of this new life. It did not bring him any joy, nor evoke any sense of nostalgia; frankly, if it had brought anything to mind, it might have been shame over his part in the burning of the city decades earlier. But that was only a drop in the ocean of his dishonor. It also wasn’t helping his mood.</p>
<p>The afternoon sun was slanting its way across the sky, casting orange rays over the multicolored rooftops of Stormwind, and Saurfang wondered what it might look like from the streets below. He did not venture from the keep very often, though he had done so more in recent weeks, albeit with an escort. Anduin feared that the citizens of Stormwind might find his presence threatening, and take up arms against him. Saurfang thought the greater risk was that they might take up arms against him and discover for themselves how foolish that was.</p>
<p>Without giving the matter much thought, he stood and left the window, leaving his chambers behind and making his way down the keep. The servants had not become nearly so comfortable with him as the guards; he thought perhaps it was because they, unlike the guards, were unarmed and wearing no armor. Fortunately, between the hours when they were most active, Saurfang had no real concern of running into a terrified maid, or a page frozen in place by fear. Not that he cared much if he did, but it grew tiresome after a while, and rarely amused him as much as it had when he first arrived in the keep. In fact, just hours after Anduin and the old wolf had set sail for Kul Tiras, Saurfang had attempted to simply seek a meal from the kitchen and nearly ended up scalded with boiling stew. The cook had been so terrified that he had pelted Saurfang with vegetables until he retreated, and it was only the prospect of waiting out the next several days in chains—assuming the guards could subdue him—that stayed his hand and prevented him from stuffing the man into one of his own cookpots.</p>
<p>Bypassing where he knew most of the keep’s inhabitants would be milling about, he made his way down through the courtyard and out into the city streets. As usual, a small detail of guards followed at a distance. While he had every confidence that he could shake them if he so wished, he did not harbor any illusions that it would be for long. In a city of orcs, trolls, and tauren, he might eventually blend in with the crowd. Not so in a city full of humans and elves.</p>
<p>His wandering took him through the Dwarven District, where most of the citizens going about their business paid him no mind. A few withering stares tracked his course through the smoke of the small forges and the dust of industry around him, but he was largely ignored.</p>
<p>Soon he crossed the canal into the Cathedral District, and all at once a veil of silence seemed to wrap around him like a heavy cloak.</p>
<p>He walked slowly, listening to the quiet babble of water in the central fountain, punctuated only by the sound of paper as a draenei in robes read silently beneath the shade of a tree. She paid him no mind, which was an unexpected relief. The Cathedral of Light itself loomed tall and imposing overhead, higher even than the bluffs surrounding Orgrimmar, he thought. It was impressive. For a time, Saurfang simply stood there in the shadow cast by the gleaming spire, thinking.</p>
<p>“You say it.”</p>
<p>“No, <em>you</em>,” a little voice whispered.</p>
<p>Saurfang looked around and then down, and found that he was being watched by a group of children. Three in total, no higher than his knees; a human boy and girl and a pandaren boy. He frowned, and two of them cowered back behind the corner they were using as a shield.</p>
<p>“Come here,” he said.</p>
<p>Any Horde child would have scrambled to obey—except for a goblin, perhaps. The three little ones hesitated, however. Finally, the pandaren stepped forward. “Sir,” she said.</p>
<p>“What is it you wished to say to me?” he asked.</p>
<p>The pandaren looked sheepish. He turned to his companions, who finally emerged from the safety of the stone wall. “Well…” he began.</p>
<p>“Did the Light cure you?” the human girl asked. She had dark hair and wide eyes, and looked remarkably similar to the boy at her side. He assumed that meant they were related.</p>
<p>Saurfang sat down on a bench and set his hands on his knees. He considered the question and what it might mean. Children often asked things that only made sense to them, after all. “Before I answer that,” he said, “I have a question for you.”</p>
<p>The children looked at one another. “Okay,” the human boy said.</p>
<p>“What are you doing playing out here by yourselves? This is a solemn place.”</p>
<p>“Our ma’s inside,” the little girl blurted out. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to say that.”</p>
<p>“I told you not to,” the pandaren warned.</p>
<p>The little human boy shook his head and rolled his eyes. He seemed to have found his courage at last. “This is my sister, Emmie, and that’s our best friend, Yunru. I’m Cal. Our ma’s in the cathedral, receiving a blessing from the priests.”</p>
<p>“I’m not supposed to be away from the camp,” Yunru said.</p>
<p>They were remarkably earnest, and incredibly bad at keeping secrets, it seemed. “Well, you have answered my question. You wanted to know if the Light <em>cured</em> me?” Did they mean the demon’s fel corruption? He wondered that children so young knew of such terrible things. “No,” he answered honestly.</p>
<p>The children seemed unsettled by his answer. “Then… who did?” Emmie asked.</p>
<p>Before Saurfang could answer, Cal spoke up. “Our papa said all orcs are evil, and so’s the whole Horde. But you’re here with the king, right?”</p>
<p>Saurfang felt his brows creep up toward his hairline at the boy’s frankness. At the same time, he found the lies fed to the Alliance’s young deplorable, and sadly unsurprising. “Helping the king,” he repeated.</p>
<p>Cal nodded. “Yeah. You’re helping King Wrynn and King Greymane defeat the Horde, aren’t you? So you’re not evil anymore. And…” He looked up at the cathedral’s spire. “You’re here. So it was the Light, wasn’t it? It cured you.”</p>
<p>Ah. Well, this was an interesting turn of events.</p>
<p>He considered how best to explain the nuances of political complexity to a a child; any explanation he could offer, no matter how watered down, would be meaningless to an orc of the same relative maturity. So too a troll, a tauren, or any other Horde race. He assumed most Alliance young were much the same.</p>
<p>“Good and evil,” he said instead, “are more complicated than you are able to understand right now.”</p>
<p>“But our papa said—”</p>
<p>“Your father, is he inside?” Saurfang considered a few choice words he might have for the man who had filled his children’s heads with such vile nonsense. War was war, and blood made enemies of them all, but there was no need for lies when the truth would suffice. When the truth was cruel enough. He had no doubt that there were many among the Horde who fed half-truths and propaganda to their own young, but he found the practice distasteful no matter who it was doing it.</p>
<p>“He’s a sailor,” Emmie explained proudly. “He went to Kul Tiras.”</p>
<p>Saurfang frowned and considered if there was anything he might say that would undo some of the fear and hatred taught to these children. If it would even make a difference to try.</p>
<p>In his mind, he imagined Anduin sitting on a rock in Orgrimmar, speaking to three mischievous children who had been lied to by their elders. He imagined how Anduin would respond to such a question.</p>
<p>“Alright,” he said. “Ask me anything you like. Anything at all.”</p>
<p>The children all seemed too stunned to speak at first, and then, as though someone had tossed a match into a pile of fireworks, they all exploded at once.</p>
<p>“One at a time!” Saurfang growled over their tinny little voices. The noise instantly ceased. “You,” he said, pointing to the pandaren boy. “Ask first.”</p>
<p>“Is… is it true that you eat people in the Horde?”</p>
<p>“Hmm,” Saurfang hummed. “That is an awfully brave question for someone so small to ask of someone so big.” He watched their eyes grow wide and chuckled. “No,” he said. “We do not eat <em>people</em>. Not—” he said, interrupting as Cal opened his mouth to speak, “—even Alliance people.”</p>
<p>Emmie took the next turn. “Do you have families?”</p>
<p>What ridiculous notions these children harbored. “Yes,” he said plainly.</p>
<p>“Do <em>you</em> have a family?” she asked.</p>
<p>“I… did, once,” he said. “No longer.”</p>
<p>Emmie looked very sad for him. “I’m sorry,” she said.</p>
<p>Saurfang inclined his head in thanks. “And you,” he said to Cal. “Ask your question.”</p>
<p>“Do you like living here in Stormwind?” he asked. “In the castle?”</p>
<p>That, perhaps more than any other question the boy might have asked, left Saurfang grasping for an answer. Did he? Certainly he felt welcomed by Anduin. Greymane… tolerated his presence—as much as Greymane tolerated anything, which wasn’t saying much. Since discovering the two of them in bed together, the old wolf had been decidedly brusque, in fact.</p>
<p>Stormwind was not his home. It was likely that he would never feel at home anywhere ever again. But for a life in exile, he supposed he could do much worse. And for all its flaws and drawbacks, Stormwind had one thing Orgrimmar never would.</p>
<p>Without meaning to, he let out a wistful sigh. The children, entirely too perceptive as children so often were, caught on at once. “Oooh,” Emmie sang, “you’re thinking about someone, aren’t you! Ma gets like that when she thinks about papa!”</p>
<p>“You should show greater respect to your elders,” Saurfang grumbled.</p>
<p>“So is <em>that</em> why you came to help us win the war?” Cal asked. “Because you like someone here?”</p>
<p>“I will not answer these nonsense questions. Leave me.”</p>
<p>“Wait, we have other questions! Do you sleep in a bed?” Yunru asked, ignoring him. “My brother says—”</p>
<p>Emmie interrupted with, “Do you like vegetables?”</p>
<p>“Yes. And yes, of course.”</p>
<p>“I read that Kalimdor has bugs the size of horses!” Cal exclaimed.</p>
<p>Saurfang frowned. “That is not a question,” he said. “I told you—”</p>
<p>“You said we could ask anything!” Emmie insisted. “What’s your favorite color?”</p>
<p>“I—”</p>
<p>Yunru pushed past the others and announced, “I heard King Greymane drinks water out of a bowl on the floor!”</p>
<p>“That is true,” Saurfang said.</p>
<p>“Where did you live in Orgrimmar?” Cal asked.</p>
<p>“In… Orgrimmar…” Their questions were coming too fast for him to keep up. He found himself leaning away, searching for some way to escape that wouldn’t require charging through a group of small children.</p>
<p>“Do you have any pets? I got a dog.”</p>
<p>“I have a direwolf,” Saurfang answered. He hoped his faithful beast was faring well in his absence.</p>
<p>“What’s its name?”</p>
<p>“How old are you?”</p>
<p>“Can I take your hair out and braid it again?”</p>
<p>“Children!” a woman shouted from across the square.</p>
<p>All three children and Saurfang looked up at the cathedral entrance. A human woman was taking the steps two at a time to reach them. Saurfang stood up at her approach.</p>
<p>“Ma!” Cal called, running to meet her. She reached out to him and abruptly thrust him behind her.</p>
<p>“Emmie, Yunru, come here,” she said sternly. Her eyes were on Saurfang the whole time.</p>
<p>So. It wasn’t just their father who had shared his poisonous notions with the children.</p>
<p>“Ma, we saw him out here and—” Emmie started to say.</p>
<p>“Enough foolishness,” their mother snapped. She pulled Emmie close, and reached for Yunru. “You stay away from him,” she said. Though she watched Saurfang, her words were only for the children. As though Saurfang, standing there towering over them all, couldn’t understand what she was saying. Or perhaps she thought speaking to him was somehow beneath her. It didn’t really matter either way.</p>
<p>“Your children are bright and inquisitive,” he said, keeping his voice even. “You should not discourage that.”</p>
<p>“I’ll thank you to mind your own business, orc,” she sneered. She began walking the children away, keeping an eye on Saurfang until they were far enough that she could turn and hurry them around a corner.</p>
<p>At the last second, just as they were about to disappear from sight, Emmie wrenched herself from her mother’s grasp long enough to turn around and wave.</p>
<p>Saurfang waved back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Old Letters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This story takes place roughly three months after the events of Consort.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It is yours now, Anduin. Not his.”</p><p>Anduin sighed and slumped in the overstuffed armchair in Genn’s anteroom. Mia was gone for what would likely be the rest of the evening, vanished into the refugee camp that had cropped up around the lake. There she would distribute supplies, food, and offer whatever other help she could. It was admirable work, and prior to the events in Durotar, Anduin had joined her on more than one occasion to offer his own blessings to those who wished to receive them. Though even he could admit that the warmth of the Light might not provide the same immediate comfort as the warmth of a blanket.</p><p>Now he begged off when she asked for his company, keeping himself busy so that he had an excuse to disappear for those hours she was gone. Tonight he had made the error of agreeing to dinner with Genn, and the other king had taken the opportunity to remind him, yet again, of a task he’d overlooked for far too long.</p><p>“I hardly have need of it,” Anduin said, knowing it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. “The table in my chambers has served me well since I was a boy.”</p><p>“A table, not a desk. And one that spends more time holding your breakfast than anything sensible. Where do you place all those scrolls and papers critical to a king’s duties when you’re sharing melon juice over a plate of bacon?”</p><p>Anduin snorted into his wine at the thought of Saurfang drinking melon juice. But what he said was, “Varok doesn’t eat bacon.”</p><p>Genn flapped an annoyed hand. “Yes, I am aware. It was a rhetorical question, Anduin. Why are you so resistant to accepting this small addition to your life?”</p><p>That question made him sigh, and he slumped down a little lower in his seat. After some time had passed, he quietly said, “I loved my father, Genn.”</p><p>“I know you did. But it isn’t your love for him that holds you back now. What is it about this change that has you so unhappy?”</p><p>Anduin sat for a moment, staring into the dark depths of his wine glass. He watched his own reflection as it shifted and warped, swirling around as every breath he took jostled the liquid and sent it rocking. “You asked me once what he would think.”</p><p>Genn bowed his head a bit. “Ah. You and Saurfang.”</p><p>“I don’t want to find missives detailing the proposed extermination of Orgrimmar, or past letters from his generals speaking of orcs in vile epithets. I want to think better of him, and hope that he wouldn’t—” He stopped himself. It was too difficult to say.</p><p>“That he wouldn’t hate you for the choices you have made. For who you love.”</p><p>Anduin took another sip, this one too large, and forced it down his throat. “My father and grandfather were both killed by orcs. I forget that sometimes.”</p><p>“You are also forgetting that your father <em>knew</em> Saurfang. He held him in great esteem.” Genn sat forward in his seat, leaning over so that he could look into Anduin’s eyes. “No, I imagine it’s possible he would not be happy with your choice, but nor would he ever hate you for it. What I said that day, the question I asked you—it wasn’t fair, Anduin. I cannot know what your father might have said, and it is not my place to speak for him.”</p><p>“You were concerned about my safety.”</p><p>“I was angry, and foolish, and I misspoke. Allow me the grace to recognize my wrongdoings, at least.” Genn was quiet for a moment, sitting up and leaning back in his chair beside the fire. The toes of his boots tapped Anduin’s across the space between them. “I cannot know what your father might have said upon learning of your affection for Saurfang,” he repeated, adding, “but I can hazard a guess. As a father myself, I’m certain he might have been worried, angry, and perhaps a bit disappointed.”</p><p>Anduin frowned and rubbed at his temples, resigned to accepting the difficult truth.</p><p>“But,” Genn went on, “I believe he would have come to accept it in time.”</p><p>“Do you really?” Anduin muttered skeptically from beneath his hand.</p><p>“I do. Or do you recall your father as a more stubborn man than even me?” Genn asked. “I daresay there is a decent possibility he might have given up on his objections as early as Darkshore.”</p><p>Anduin laughed lightly. “You may have a point. Taking a spear to the chest while defending the innocent is just the sort of thing he’d have appreciated.”</p><p>“Indeed. So,” Genn pushed himself up from the chair and into a stretch. “You will see to the desk?”</p><p>With a long, dramatic sigh meant only for Genn’s benefit, Anduin nodded. “Yes, I’ll see to it.”</p><p>“Good. I’ll have it moved out of your father’s chambers in the morning. Which reminds me—”</p><p>Anduin held up a hand to stop him, knowing exactly where the old king was going with his thought. “One thing at a time, Genn.”</p><p> </p><p><br/>
The next morning, the desk was moved to Anduin’s chambers, placed in a sunlit corner by the window—albeit less sunny for the rain presently lashing the glass from the outside—where he could look out over the lake. Saurfang was seated at the table, now <em>only</em> a table, while Anduin took stock of the many drawers before him.</p><p>“I only hope he was as organized in his affairs as he was in his military strategy,” Anduin sighed.</p><p>Behind him Saurfang grunted, and Anduin heard him butter another piece of toast. The scrape of the knife was so strangely domestic that it was actually distracting.</p><p>The first drawer he opened, which was also the widest and shallowest, contained mostly loose, blank parchment. There were also three quills of varying quality, a small knife, and a dried up inkwell. Anduin closed it again; that drawer hardly required his attention, it seemed.</p><p>The second was to his right, and there he found missives that, at a glance, seemed comprised of critical or otherwise significant information. He moved those to the bed, intending to give them a second look later on, and with any luck determine what might be worth keeping. Assuming any were.</p><p>Drawer after drawer he found that the significance of the contents waned as he moved lower. By the time he reached the middle of the left hand side, he was expecting reports on grain shipments and wool tax.</p><p>What he wasn’t expecting was to accidentally uncover a secret.</p><p>Turning to ask Saurfang a question, his hand slipped, and he pushed too far into the middlemost drawer. The bottom gave way, there was a <em>thunk</em>, and Anduin swiveled back to the desk in surprise. It appeared perfectly normal at a glance, but when he moved some of the papers inside the drawer—ledgers, as he had assumed—he spotted a small hole in the back, tucked into the shadow of a corner. It would have looked to the casual observer like nothing more than a flaw in the wood, or perhaps damage from moving the drawers one too many times, but Anduin knew better. The drawer was just a bit too shallow, the bottom a shade darker than the wood around it. He wiggled his finger into the hole and pulled, and the bottom came up to reveal a hidden compartment. Inside lay a single, wrinkled piece of parchment, folded in half.</p><p>Anduin held it up in the gray light of the window and unfolded it to read the contents. He let out a soft, “<em>Oh,</em>” when he realized he was not looking at the familiar loops and curls of Common, but the harsher, more angular characters of a letter written in Orcish. There was no addressee at the top, and a quick glance showed no signature at the bottom, either. Whoever had written it, they had every intention of keeping the identities of the sender and receiver private. Anduin could only assume his father had been the latter, although it was possible the letter had merely been intercepted and delivered to his hand.</p><p>He read what he could, coming up against unfamiliar words more often than he would have expected. He was nearly fluent in Orcish, both written and spoken, but there were strange clauses, changes in structure that made little sense to him.</p><p>“Varok,” he said absently. “Could you come here?”</p><p>A chair scraped across the stone behind him, and he heard his mate’s heavy footsteps. “Mm?” he hummed. “You’ve found something of interest?”</p><p>“Possibly. Can you read this?” Anduin held the letter up over his head, craning his neck to peer at the upside-down face looming above him.</p><p>Saurfang took the letter and returned to his seat. Anduin twisted in his own chair to watch, hoping another orc could make some sense of the strange scrawl.</p><p>“What is it?” he asked when Saurfang’s eyes widened in surprise. He imagined pilfered secrets, a threat against his father’s life—or his own—or perhaps even an overture of peace. If the sender was still alive, and their intentions were good, there was a chance the letter might even make a difference in the current conflict. He held his breath and waited for the reply.</p><p>“Anduin, it…” Saurfang scratched his chin. His gold eyes darted from the page, casting quick, furtive glances in Anduin’s direction. “It’s nothing of any significance,” he said at last. He folded the paper and set it on the table beside him.</p><p>“What? But why would he have hidden it otherwise? You were surprised by what you read, Varok. What aren’t you telling me?” Anduin stood and stalked over to the table. He snatched the letter from beneath a plate and tried again to translate it for himself. “It’s almost as if this was written by an orc not speaking Orcish at all,” he murmured, his brows furrowed in concentration.</p><p>“Let it be,” Saurfang warned. He reached for the parchment, but Anduin sidestepped his grasping hand. “You should burn it.”</p><p>“Whatever this letter is, it was important enough that my father hid it away where it was unlikely anyone would ever find it.” His discovery of the false bottom in the drawer had been entirely accidental, after all. No one else had access to his father’s chambers, or that desk. Forcing the lock on either would have been tantamount to treason. “If you won’t help me, I will simply ask one of the other orcs.”</p><p>The few political refugees who had chosen to remain in Stormwind after Baine’s departure lived in a small, out-of-the-way camp beside the lake. They kept to themselves, simply waiting out the end of the war, hoping to one day return home. Among them were two orcs, both nearer to Saurfang’s age. If he could read the letter, Anduin believed there was a good chance they would be able to as well.</p><p>“Do <em>not</em> do that,” Saurfang growled.</p><p>“Why? Damn it, Varok!” He flapped the letter in the air. “What is this?”</p><p>“Nothing you stand to gain from knowing. Let it be.”</p><p>“I won’t! And I won’t have you keeping secrets from me, not about my own father! If he was involved in something, some secret political maneuver, a dishonorable effort to undermine the Horde—”</p><p>“It’s a love letter, Anduin.”</p><p>Anduin drew up short, flinching away as though he’d been struck. Even the blood seemed to have stopped in his veins. An icy chill crept over him, and he slowly lowered his hand. He stared at the letter as though it had somehow come alive. “A… What do you mean, <em>a love letter?</em>” he asked numbly.</p><p>Saurfang frowned. It tugged his lips around his fangs. “Exactly as it sounds.”</p><p>“Father must have found it—”</p><p>“It is about him, Anduin. <em>To</em> him.”</p><p>Anduin wanted to fling the letter away from himself, throw it into the fire burning in the hearth, as Saurfang had warned him to do. The air felt too thick to breathe. Why hide it? Surely a man… Surely a <em>king</em> might openly seek out companionship. Unless there was a compelling reason not to. “Who?” he asked. <em>Who was it from?</em></p><p>“I can’t be certain…”</p><p>“You know who it is. Varok.” Anduin forced himself to sit in the chair across from Saurfang. “I need to know what this letter says, and who wrote it.”</p><p>Saurfang was quiet for a very long time. Then he sighed and held out his hand. Anduin placed the letter into his palm, and he drew it back and unfolded it. With one last look at Anduin across the table, he warned, “You won’t like it.”</p><p>“I don’t care.”</p><p>That, at last, seemed to undo enough of Saurfang’s stubborn resolve; he cleared his throat and started to speak, but didn’t make it through the first syllable before stopping again. “You should know,” he said gravely, “there is a reason you were not able to read this.”</p><p>Anduin perked up. “Is it in code, then?” Perhaps the love letter itself was simply a front; a ruse, designed to misdirect.</p><p>But Saurfang only frowned and shook his head, knowing too well what Anduin was hoping. “No. It was written plainly in Orcish, but a…” He searched for the right word. “A forerunner to the Orcish you know. The simpler, less formal Orcish now spoken among the races of the Horde. The two are close enough in form, but there are differences that would make translation difficult for an outsider such as yourself. One who is not familiar with the birthplace of this language.”</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Anduin said. “You’re saying this is the same language, only not? Something older than the current Horde?”</p><p>“In a sense.”</p><p>“That would mean it’s—”</p><p>“You would know it as the tongue spoken by the mag’har of Outland,” Saurfang confirmed.</p><p>The mag’har. They were the remnants of the orcish clans of Draenor, the last of those orcs uncorrupted by Mannoroth’s tainted blood. Anduin knew of very few mag’har who had crossed the Dark Portal in the years before his father’s death. Saurfang’s son had been one.</p><p>His eyes grew wide, and he gasped, “It isn’t—?”</p><p>“No,” Saurfang said quickly. “Although, that would perhaps be less troubling.”</p><p>If the thought of his own late son having an affair with Anduin’s father was the <em>better</em> option, Anduin couldn’t imagine how bad the truth must be. He tried to recall all the mag’har he knew of, but very few came to mind. He was just about to blindly guess Thrall’s mate, Aggra, when another name occurred to him. One he knew he had disregarded without a thought simply because it was too absurd to be true.</p><p>But it wasn’t absurd at all, really. Because it <em>was</em> true.</p><p>“It’s Garrosh, isn’t it,” he said quietly.</p><p>The flat line of Saurfang’s mouth and the way his eyes darted to some imagined middle distance told Anduin the answer he now wished he had never known. The anxious feeling in his chest dropped to a cold weight in the pit of his stomach, and before he knew it he was standing, walking across the room for no other reason but to be as far away from the letter as possible.</p><p>“Anduin.”</p><p>“How do you know?” He spun on his heel. “How can you be sure? There are no names.” A part of him knew that there was no refuge in denial, but he couldn’t stop himself from grasping at whatever was in reach.</p><p>“There are… other things. Mentions of—” He drew a deep breath and set the letter down. “Perhaps it would be best if you didn’t know.”</p><p>Anduin shook his head. “No, I have to know.” When had the affair taken place? How had it started? Was it a one-time tryst, or an ongoing… <em>romance?</em> Had his father <em>loved</em> Garrosh Hellscream?</p><p>Anduin’s mind reeled, and he sat down on the end of the bed, his head in his hands. Would the letter even answer these questions? The worst outcome he could imagine was learning this terrible truth and never finding the answers he now desperately needed.</p><p>“Read it,” he heard himself say. His voice was quiet. Small.</p><p>Saurfang hesitated, shifting in his seat to buy himself time. At last he drew a deep breath and began speaking, and Anduin heard the words as though they were funneled to him from across a great distance. Not all of it reached him, the words drifting through his mind like a poisonous fog, difficult to grasp and painful to take in.</p><p>
  <em>“...the night we spent in the snow, heat from our bodies melting the frost around us…”</em>
</p><p>Anduin sat back on the bed and crossed his legs. His hands were in his hair, fingers gripping his scalp as he stared at the quilt beneath him. <em>“...your dark hair wrapped around my fingers…”</em> The images the letter conjured were equally horrifying and fascinating, and he wished he had never heard them. Wished he couldn’t see everything vividly as Garrosh described it in the text. Garrosh, who had broken nearly every bone in Anduin’s body and left him for dead.</p><p>Garrosh, who could care enough to tell a lover that he wanted to caress his tawny skin, trace each scar with his lips. A creature possessed of the violent, destructive nature necessary to order the annihilation of Theramore, who could also speak so tenderly, so passionately. <em>“...to breathe in your scent and taste you…”</em></p><p>Who was still, undeniably, unapologetically, a proud orc warrior. <em>“...leave bruises on your body, make you scream my name, mark you as mine…”</em> The similarities to things Saurfang had said and <em>done</em> to Anduin in the past did not escape Anduin’s notice—or, it seemed, Saurfang’s. <em>“...feel you scratch at my skin as you twist and writhe beneath me, begging me to stop, to go on forever, to give you what no one else ever has.”</em> Saurfang stopped and rubbed between his eyes, as though he could somehow erase the images from his own mind that way. “Anduin,” he said.</p><p>“You may as well finish.”</p><p>There was another heavy sigh, and then the parchment rustled in Saurfang’s hand. <em>“When I conquer your city, your kingdom, I will also conquer you. I will keep you at my side. Take this for a vow if you wish, or laugh, and deny my promise. It will not change destiny, nor lessen my resolve. You are mine.”</em></p><p>He finished and set the letter down, folding it again as he did so. He sat in silence, watching Anduin from across the room. The cold remnants of his breakfast lay spread out across the table before him.</p><p>“There is no date, is there,” Anduin said, not really expecting an answer.</p><p>The letter could have been written during the Northrend campaign, or it could have been written from the warmth of Grommash Hold. Anduin might have been a child still, unaware of anything but the impending danger of the Scourge threat. Unaware, even, of the rivalry that had developed between his father and a brash young orc, a prodigious fighter who would one day rise to the highest ranks of the Horde.</p><p>Or he might have been lying on a rattan rug on the floor of a pandaren inn, fighting for his life.</p><p>He wanted to believe the affair couldn’t have continued after Garrosh rose to power. After he unearthed the Heart of Y’Shaarj, forever changing his destiny and those of so many others. That his father wouldn’t have been so reckless, so thoughtlessly selfish… </p><p>When he looked up again, he saw that Saurfang had his head bowed and his eyes downcast, staring at his own hands. Anduin wondered what it might take for him to relinquish his feelings for the orc who shared <em>his</em> bed. Who kept his heart, and had so clearly given his own in return. If anything could ever truly snuff out the light that warmed his chest when he looked at his beloved mate.</p><p>“My father’s… indiscretion…” he said slowly, “was not who he was. It was only something he did.”</p><p>Saurfang looked up.</p><p>“I cannot ever ask him what Garrosh meant to him, how long the affair lasted, or how it felt when he learned that his—that Garrosh had nearly killed me. I can only guess.” He recalled Genn’s words, and allowed himself a small half-smile. “But I do know that he made the best choices he could for his people, for the Alliance.” And, in the end, for all of Azeroth.</p><p>“In fact, I… I’d like to think this means we might have understood one another a bit better. Does that sound strange, Varok? Perhaps I’m the one being selfish.”</p><p>
  <em>My father and grandfather were both killed by orcs. I forget that sometimes.</em>
</p><p>But he and his father had something in common now that was so much more powerful than a shared legacy of death.</p><p>Saurfang had a strange look on his face as he watched Anduin stand and smooth out his hair. A kind of contented smile that deepened the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Not selfish,” he said.</p><p>Anduin nodded. He looked at the window and saw that the rain had nearly stopped. The lake was visible once more, as well as the camps beyond. Night elves, Gilneans, and on the opposite shore, a small community of orcs, trolls, goblins, and tauren. Further in the distance he could just make out the spires of the cathedral in the vast gray sky.</p><p>“I think I’ll go for a walk,” he said. When Saurfang started to rise, he gestured him back into his seat. “I would like to be alone, if you don’t mind. But I promise to be discreet.”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>Anduin retrieved a change of clothes from the adjacent room and changed quickly, hoping to beat the return of the rain. He was halfway into his traveling coat and hood when he saw Saurfang’s eyes on him, and caught the little worried furrow between his brows. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“This letter, Anduin…” He indicated the folded parchment. “Would you tell me where it is you’re going?”</p><p>Saurfang was worried. Of course he was. Anduin crossed the room and took one of his large green hands in both of his own, squeezing it tightly. He leaned in and placed a kiss on the side of Saurfang’s mouth, letting his lips linger on the cool metal ring that encircled a jutting tooth as he withdrew. “I thought perhaps I should say a prayer. For my father,” he said.</p><p>He felt Saurfang nod, heard a rumbling hum answer his explanation. “Only one?”</p><p>“Maybe two.” Maybe the Garrosh who could write such a passionate letter, baring his own heart so completely, so earnestly, deserved one as well.</p><p>Maybe they all deserved a little mercy for simply being who they were.</p><p>“Come back safely,” Saurfang said.</p><p>Anduin smiled warmly as he pulled the hood up to hide his blond hair, and stepped through the door. The warmth in his heart at that moment had little to do with the Light, but he gave quiet thanks nonetheless.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading, I know the back and forth jump between the Armor to Black Sand period and then post-Consort was probably a bit confusing. Hopefully the stories were enjoyable though!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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